You Know You Are Loved When A Gryffindor Loves You

30

Up in the infirmary Ron settled in a chair next to Draco’s bed and curled up to sleep. Draco turned as much as his injuries would allow, “Come up here with me, babe. Will you hold me?”. Between them they moved Draco slightly across the bed and Ron could squeeze on so long as he lay on his side. He threaded a careful arm around the back of Draco’s neck and lay down holding Draco’s hands with his free hand. He had tried to douse the candle until the shaking of his lover in his arms alerted him and he re-lit it. “Thank-you”, whispered Draco as Ron kissed his hair.

Ron murmured, “I’m really sorry about not being to tell you about Harry and Severus. I even offered to be obliviated after the wedding but...” Draco raised their joined hands to Ron’s mouth, “Ssshh, don’t worry about it, I understand. Wow, they’ve been married over a year and I won’t be able to buy them a wedding present”. Ron chuckled and nuzzled his lover’s ear, “I bought them a crystal vase from both of us. I put both our names on the tag and the card”.

“Go on then”, Draco whispered, smiling slightly, “Tell me all about it”, and Ron did, in a low voice until he heard a gentle snore and realised Draco was asleep. Yawning, he gazed at his lover until his own eyelids fell.

When Poppy did her checks in the night, she smiled at the two boys now curled around each other. She carefully changed Draco’s drip and catheter bag and tutted softly at the faint presence of blood still in the contents and slipped out of the room. The main healers from now on were Draco’s own will to live and the love of the tall redhead spooned around him in bed. She left as quietly as she’d arrived.

In the night, Draco woke up sweating and struggling to move, then Ron was awake beside him, calming him and feeding him water, making him come all the way back to the present until recognition dawned in the pale grey eyes that he was safe again and he could lapse back to somnolence once the shakes subsided. He felt the wash of love around him as Ron held him again and let it all slip away. The rest of the night was relatively peaceful. Draco tossed and mumbled some more but quieted to deep sleep around dawn.

The bombshell hit the next morning when the Daily Prophet landed on various breakfast tables. Five Death-Eaters dead at Malfoy Manor and Draco Malfoy sought for questioning as their potential killer. The Death-Eaters had been named as LeStrange: Rodolphus and Bellatrix, Dolohov: Antonin, and Malfoy: Lucius and Narcissa. Four had all been A/K’d, the signature thick in the air, the other strangled. There had been a broken wand at the scene that was identified as having belonged to Malfoy junior plus many items of torture lying around, all of which bore traces of blood and human tissue, ropes with tiny slivers of human skin still adherent. Narcissa had been found strangled in an upper chamber, her limp body half propped up against the leg of her bed.

There was a hurried meeting called in Poppy’s office of Severus Albus and Poppy. “Where is Ron?”, was Albus’ first question. Poppy said, her eyes wide, “He’s trying to get Draco to eat something, I’ve not long since served breakfast”. Severus said, “Perhaps we ought to at least make them aware of what is going on”. Albus frowned, unsure, but Severus moved out of the room before anyone could stop him, sod Dumbledore for trying to keep all affected parties in the dark and this was his godson, for crying out loud. He tapped smartly on the door and Draco bid him enter in a small voice.

Even though Ron held the fork low, it was obvious from the way his other hand was cradling his godson’s head that Ron was actually feeding him manually. Draco’s hands lay limply against the covers. In that one look, Severus was convinced that Draco wasn’t capable of any of this, he was far too injured, there had to be a third party behind all this, but also, given the extent of the lad’s injuries, how had he managed to escape at all?, get himself to a Floo fire?, crawl into their bed?.

He huffed out a breath and approached the bed handing over the paper as he did so. Ron read the article out as Severus watched Draco’s reaction. “They were alive when I left, they were alive. I could hear them approaching. There was someone who cut me down and pushed me into the Floo fire and said “Guest suite number one. Hogwarts school” and I was in your room. I was unconscious for a while, then I crawled up onto the bed. I was in a guest suite but I didn’t know it was where you two lived. I was vaguely aware that the suite was occupied so I knew someone would find me eventually, then it all went dark until I came round and Ron was here”, Draco’s voice was high, on the edge of panic.

His eyes were round and he was sweating as the memories flooded back, “It was why they wanted your son, an unsullied body for him. They had forced me to confess that I was no longer untouched, then they raped me, over and over, Dolohov and fucking LeStrange, and then she had a poke at me with a fucking broomhandle and then my Father.....”, he stopped abruptly, rocking back and forth on the pillow making small moans of acute distress, “No, no, no, no, not that, oh God, not that, please, stop, no, father, nonononononoNO. AAAGGHHHH”, and he fainted dead away.

Poppy and Albus were in the room in seconds. Severus held a hand up, “He had some powerful flashbacks, but he insists that these people were alive when he left and that he was helped by someone”. Ron interjected, “He just isn’t strong enough to have done all this. Fuck, I’ve been feeding him, for fuck’s sake, he cannot lift hand to mouth, he can’t even piss for himself right now. He didn’t do this. He just couldn’t”.

Poppy had to agree, “Some of these injuries are old and long healed. There are a couple of signs of nose breakings and a fractured knuckle or two that we could possibly lay at the door of one Mr Potter during their fighting years as I recollect treating them myself, but I have never treated any of these older injuries, but all of the fresh contusions and breaks I reckon have happened in the last week or so, so they were all heaped, hurt on hurt, which is commensurate with extensive torture over the last week, and if any court in the land should require it of me, then I am quite prepared to take the stand and say my piece”.

Draco slowly came round with Ron holding him and several pairs of concerned eyes gazing his way. Poppy was beside him in an instant. “You fainted after some sort of flashback”, she stated, taking his wrist and looking at her little nurse’s watch as she measured his pulse, keeping it matter-of-fact. “Your pulse is high, you must try and relax, let me give you a tranquiliser, it won’t make you sleep, but you need your muscles to relax a bit around your injuries, especially your broken bones”. He nodded numbly and recognised the Quiet Night potion as it entered his mouth and slipped down his throat along with his regular dose of painkiller. He relaxed in Ron’s arms.

There was soft conversation, strangely comforting sounds around him and he felt his smile spread, “They like to play games, you know”. He didn’t realise he was speaking aloud, but the rest of the conversations around him stilled. “He likes to eat human flesh too”, the remark was casual, almost offhand, a small smile playing with his lips. “I refused the morsel he offered me, so he Crucio’d me once for every year of my life. Thank fuck I’m not nineteen until next week”, he laughed weakly. Poppy had tears in her eyes. “They raped me with a broomstick handle, they fucking raped me, hurt me, and all because I am not pure any more. I have had sex. Oooops, like any normal teenage person, and nobody told me. Nobody fucking told me. Maybe, if I’d have known.......”.

Ron held him, “No, Draco, don’t blame yourself. They should have told you if that was their plan”. Severus cocked a brow at the speed of the boy’s thoughts, he was right, if that was the Malfoy plan, to present Voldemort with a pristine untouched body to take over, then why wasn’t Draco schooled to this by his family?. It still begged the question of ‘why his son?’.

The blond was crying quietly in his lover’s arms, “I didn’t do this. I didn’t do it. I did not kill my own parents, however much I hate them”, he sniffed. No-one disbelieved him, he was simply too weak to have cast four A/K’s, it took a lot out of a healthy person to cast two, and someone as systematically broken as Draco?. No!!!

They filtered from the room leaving Ron and Draco alone, each lost in their own thoughts. Ron leaned down to kiss his lover after they had all gone, “We’ll sort this out, really we will, we’ll keep you safe and away from more harm, I promise you”, and Draco sank into that warmth and security and in that moment, knew what real love was all about.

He drifted into a snooze and Ron continued to just be there.

****

Severus threw himself onto the couch and burst into tears. Harry gathered him up. “Draco started to remember stuff. There’s no way he could have killed all those people, he’s too broken. He said that someone released him and dumped him in the Floo fire. That was all he could recall other than he heard the four conversing just before he was Floo’d to our suite. Apparently, he didn’t even know it was ours, but maybe this mystery rescuer did. It’s all bloody strange”, his tears sniffled to a stop against Harry’s chest. He lifted his head, “There’s just too many questions. Are the littlies asleep?”. Harry nodded, “The pre-lunch nap”. Severus smiled, “That gives us how long?”. Harry rolled his eyes, “About twenty minutes left, this is a short one. Shall we wait until after lunch, then we get two glorious hours”. Severus was hungry, “One each, pretty please”, and pulled Harry on top of him, meshing their tongues together and spread himself, licking his lips, for a short hard fuck.

****

It was Pomona Sprout who found them as she led her third formers to greenhouse 5, two huddled and bloodied shapes under cloaks. She held the class back and approached the two bodies with her wand drawn, she sent two of the class back to the castle to fetch the headmaster and Aurora Sinistra as she recognised the Slytherin badges on their cloaks. She held them with her wand until the other staff were beside her, then all three advanced and lifted the cloaks to reveal Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, bloodied and shivering beneath. They stirred in the strong light and squinted at the Headmaster’s voice, “We seek asylum, sir. If he finds us he’ll kill us. We helped to get Draco out of Malfoy Manor and, er, we had to kill someone”.

All were taken aback by this. Albus cast the two into a light body bind and one of the class was sent ahead to warn Poppy to expect two new, but potentially dangerous patients. She examined them and found various cuts grazes and sprains, mainly to arms, shoulders and back, that bespoke much combat. Vincent also had a severe whiplash that made him moan in agony and Greg had a torn ligament in a knee. She bathed away the copious blood to find superficial scratches, “Oh, yes”, Vincent murmured, “Most of the blood on us is from Draco. We had to cut him down from this frame thing, he was all tied up in a star shape and he was covered in blood and bruises. Is he here? Is he alright?”. The anxiety in the boy’s tone was evident.

Albus still held his wand on the boys as Poppy did her work, “You had to kill someone, you say? Pray, who was it?” Both boys quailed and shrank back against the headboards of their beds, Greg stammered, “Mrs Malfoy, sir. She came at us with her wand drawn, she was blazing mad, sir. She would have killed us sir. She was screaming at us. I-I-I couldn’t understand a word. We both hexed her and, erm.....”, he tailed off. Vincent mumbled, “I finished the job, sir. Then we took her upstairs and dumped her in a bedroom. We rushed back downstairs and freed Draco from that contraption and dumped him in the Floo fire and the only instruction that would work was ‘guest suite one’, we tried to send him to your office sir, but the Floo wouldn’t work”.

The Headmaster absorbed all of this, his expression not altering. When Poppy stood back from both beds, he placed them once again in a light strong body-bind, one that would keep them within the confines of their beds but allow limbs some movement. He was in a total quandary as to how to proceed. He crossed the sick bay and rapped smartly on Draco’s door, he was admitted immediately by Ron looking a little dishevelled as did his lover who was busily pulling the covers up around himself, both faces a bright pink. Albus smiled inside, hormones and their demands could actually be a great healer, but for now he had some questions he needed answers to.

Without preamble, he sat in the chair beside Draco’s bed, “Master Malfoy, I need to know why there’s a Floo connection between the Manor and the fireplace in Harry and Severus’ apartment?” Ron was holding him silently offering his support with a small squeeze around his shoulders, “Well, erm, I opened the connection last year in school, when Ron and I first got together. After the Christmas holidays, I established the connection to one of the little-used fires. I would Floo into Hogwarts, then I could firecall Ron at the Burrow or in London without my Father finding out. That fire in that room also is linked directly to the Burrow, but not to the main network. It wasn’t Severus and Harry’s suite then just an empty set of rooms. Ron and I could, er, talk in peace. I disabled the connection to Ron’s house, but it was handy to nip back home in the middle of the night for books and things. I must have forgotten to disable it completely before I left school, though I could have sworn that I did so”. As if to back up this tale, Ron blushed crimson to the tips of his ears, now was not a good time to discuss the merits or otherwise of fire-call sex.

Albus saw the blushes and his eyes twinkled at the undertone. He then informed Draco that his two best friends/henchmen were also in the sickbay but were being held. Also that they had admitted to killing his Mother. Draco’s eyes squeezed shut as he listened then sagged as Albus finished his speech. He sighed, “They were to be Marked along with me on my birthday. They were staying with me at the Manor. At first it was just friends staying, then it became clear that we were all prisoners, there were wards around the estate that even I as the son could neither lower, alter nor remove. When my Father found that we were looking for a way out, he tightened the wards and took the others away from me. Voldemort likes a sense of occasion when he Marks and the Marking of three of his faithful followers’ sons he was looking forward to. I remember him ordering my Father to ‘get me ready’ for the main festivities. I had no idea that this meant such brutal bestial practices. I hope he didn’t hurt the other two too badly. How are they?”

The old man assured his charge that his friends were very much alive although shocked and bruised, but that he would be keeping all of his new asylum seekers apart for now and it was time to bring in an Auror and maybe the use of a little Veritaserum to get to the bottom of everything. After all, there was still the deaths of four other people to investigate. Albus wasn’t happy, not happy at all, as he made his way to the chambers of the one man who could help to sort all of this out. Severus Snape.

****

Who was currently lying spent in the arms of his beloved lazily tracing a path around his lover’s swollen lips with his tongue as Harry fought off sleep for one more cuddle, one more blistering kiss. They were both on the downward spiral towards sleep when the soft knock came. Severus moaned and shook some wakefulness back into his head leaving his Harry to doze, wrapped himself in his gown and went to answer the door, placing his fingers over his lips to hush his visitor indicating to his Headmaster that both Harry and the children were having their nap.

Dumbledore took one look into his Potion Masters face and smiled to divine how near to sleep he had been and apologised once again for the intrusion into private family time, then apprised the ex-Head of Slytherin on the new developments. Severus shook his head again and begged some time to think about all of this. Albus nodded and departed. “Try and speak with them before dinner if you can, Severus”, and the dark-haired man promised before locking the door once more.

“Whowuzzat?” Harry sleepily enquired as his beloved shrugged off his gown and curled up with the love of his life in his arms and Severus told him although he knew it barely registered before Harry snuggled into his arms and the world spun away from them both for a while.

He loved this most of all, waking in Harry’s arms with tiny kisses being planted wherever Harry could find a spot on his face or body with his soft lips, then the bright slightly lop-sided smile, the kisses a little firmer on his lips until they opened and received a soft lazy tongue between them, reaching, exploring, then he would answer with his own sleepy tongue and the kiss would stretch out into infinity until one or both of the children brought them both back to this world with a soft bump and they were parents again.

They dressed quickly then Harry set about readying his babies for their evening meal while Severus stepped over to the medical wing to speak to his two ex-members of house. They were scared and contrite and stuck to their story of only having killed Narcissa. They were such dolts he believed them. They were genuinely distressed at the state in which they had found Draco but insisted there were no dead people in the room when they cut Draco free and shoved him into the fire, which rather bore out Draco’s story that Dumbledore had related. Severus sighed, maybe it was time for an Auror and a little truth around here. Someone had killed the four Death-Eaters and it seemed to be neither Draco nor Crabbe or Goyle.

Poppy served the evening meal to her two captives who devoured it with gusto, then her patient and his attentive boyfriend who set about feeding him again the moment the door was closed. She could hear the masterful, “Give over, Dragon mine, you fucking need to eat”, as she walked down the corridor and smiled, Ron Weasley was definitely head over heels with the blond Slytherin. Maybe the imperious little spoiled git wasn’t so bad after all.

****
Severus and Harry took their evening meal in their quarters that night. Alex, still teething, was fractious and whiny. Amanda just stared at her wee brother with a look of absolute contempt for his behaviour. She had weathered the worst of teething with a few groans and pink spots on her cheeks, but Alex was having a hard time of it. Severus picked the child up and held him, using the ‘voice’ to croon, “You give yourself such a hard time, son of mine, relax, little one, you will soon have your teeth”, he dipped his finger into the soothing gel potion that he had made and smoothed it over the child’s gums and the fractiousness ceased like a light being turned off.

They played with their children and Harry made his bond-mate read tonight’s story, something about a ginger cat, a rabbit and a teddy bear. “Bloody hell, Harry, what is this tripe we are feeding our children?” Harry’s eyes teared momentarily, “You once asked me about innocence in my life, Severus, and I told you I had never known any. I suspect that you are the same. However, theirs is a parallel universe that belongs to children, that belongs to innocence, that has teddy bears consorting with bunnies and pussy cats, that has the tooth fairy in it and Father Christmas and sweeties called Smarties not the vile crap that are Bertie Bott’s Beans. That’s for the older kids who can appreciate the humour. You want to see true innocence, my Severus, just look into our children’s’ eyes. I know our Amanda may seem like a ninety-year-old in a not-yet-one year old’s body, but she still loves bunnies and kittens. Imagine that she’s you, but with the innocence still there. At this stage of their lives, this is what they need, there’s a time to tear the scales from their eyes, but now isn’t it. Wait ‘til next Christmas when we put all the decorations up again and watch their little faces glow. Sometimes, Severus”, he said, his voice softening, “We have to suspend all the adult bullshit of daily life and get back to where the kiddies are, see it from their point of view, how big and strange and new it all is. Sometimes, especially when I was feeding Mandy before Alex was born, I would lie down with her and try and see what she was seeing, the big white soft thing, oh, that’s a soft white lying-on thing, then the soft skin with the slightly scritchy hair and that smell, oh, yes, mummy, then the other face with the big tummy, hmm, other mummy, then the new cries and she checks them out, another thing all red and yelling, smaller than her, laid in her cradle, she’s bigger than it but she lays a hand on it and it quiets down and she has control, but it’s gentle. Aaahhh, I love watching the kids”.

They both looked down, their children were asleep. “It looks like you told the bedtime story tonight, my love”, Severus kissed Harry’s temple then stood gathering a child to him. Harry grinned and picked up Amanda and both of them tucked their sleeping babes into bed, “We’ll have to make this cradle bigger, won’t we?” Harry asked, to receive a kiss from his lover, “I’ll do it this weekend, when they’re both up. Remind me”, and led his beloved back to the lounge.

They sipped brandy seated back to chest, Harry’s head lolling against Severus’ shoulder. Severus slipped a stray hand under Harry’s shirt and toyed with a nipple making it hard, then ghosting over to the other until Harry moaned, then let the hand travel until it cupped his cock swiftly stiffening behind denim confines, then let his mouth loose on a tasty shoulder and neck while he undid Harry and released his cock gently pumping him. Harry moaned but stopped him, easing and kicking his jeans off, then spread himself wide as he encouraged Severus’ hand back around his ready cock, one leg raised, his hole exposed. “Put your fingers in me then fuck me, no, better still, your tongue. I’m all clean inside”. Severus levelled a heated gaze into his eyes and moved to the floor pulling his prize to him and sinking his tongue into a clean ready arse. Harry spread himself obscenely wide as all manner of delicious filth poured into his mind and he was fucked comprehensively with tongue, fingers and cock until he screamed as he came, his lover filling him bare moments later uttering loud moans and mumbled curses and words of undying love.

They were back in the bubble and loving it as they rolled around kissing and touching and loving, then there was a long look between them, jade burning into onyx, then they were almost fighting in their intensity as the kisses grew more heated and Harry laid Severus on his back, casually throwing his wanton legs over his shoulders as he fucked him deeply, with cock in arse and tongue in mouth, no hands reaching around, a slow fuck, the heat taking it’s sweet time to build. As they came they shivered and shuddered and made barely a sound, the sensations bone-deep. They slept with their bodies pressed together, their lips pressed against warm skin, their arms holding each other tight.